Rolston acted in Martin Scorsese's 2006 film The Departed and the television horror film Backwoods. Many of Rolston's screen roles are villains due to his trademark icy stare. He also co-starred in 2008's Saw V and 2009's Saw VI. In 1994, he portrayed convicted killer "Karl Mueller" in the Babylon 5 episode "The Quality of Mercy", as well as "Richard Odin", leader of a vegetarian cult in an episode of The X-Files titled "Red Museum". He was also originally considered to voice the supervillain Firefly in Batman: The Animated Series in 1992, although the character was deemed unsuitable for the series and ultimately dropped.